DUSHANBE, April 22, 2011, Asia-Plus  -- On occasion of Vladimir Lenin’s 141st birthday, activists of the Communist Party of Tajikistan (CPT) are laying wreaths at the monument to the Bolshevik revolutionary leader in Roudaki district today.

“After that, an official ceremony of admission of young people to the party will take place,” CPT leader Shodi Shabdolov told Asia-Plus in an interview.  “Since all the statues of Vladimir Lenin in Dushanbe have been removed, we are forced to hold the event in the administrative center of Roudaki district.”

According to him, all the statues of Lenin had been erected in the country in Soviet times in accordance with government’s decrees due to people’s money and many of them are know historical and cultural relics.  “Meanwhile, today, they are being removed by decisions of local authorities for some reason,” CPT leader noted.

On dismantling the Lenin statue in Khujand, Shabdolov noted that the statue was built some 40 years ago following decree of the Soviet government and today it is being dismantled by decision of the Khujand mayor.  “The incumbent Prime Minister Oqil Oqilov, who headed construction organization at that time, was given the government award for construction of a 23-meter statue of Lenin in Khujand,” Shabdolov said.

CPT leader expressed confidence that there would come a day when all removed statues of Lenin would return to their original places.

According to some sources, work on dismantling the Lenin statue in Khujand has begun this week and the Ismoili Somoni statue will reportedly replace it by the 20th anniversary of Tajikistan’s Independence, which is marked on September 9, 2011.

The Lenin statue in Khujand on the right bank of the Syrdarya River was built in 1974 and at 24 meters high is believed to be the biggest monument to the Bolshevik revolutionary leader in Central Asia.

In Soviet times Khujand was called Leninabad and Sughd was called Leninabad province.  After a referendum in 1990 Khujand reverted to its historic name; Sughd followed suit in 2001.